Highlights: #196 – Jonathan Birch on the edge cases of sentience and why they matter
80k After Hours · The 80,000 Hours team
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Show Notes
This is a selection of highlights from episode #196 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode:
Jonathan Birch on the edge cases of sentience and why they matter
And if you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing [email protected].
Chapters:
- Luisa’s intro (00:00:00)
- The history of neonatal surgery without anaesthetic (00:00:23)
- Overconfidence around disorders of consciousness (00:03:17)
- Separating abortion from the issue of foetal sentience (00:07:26)
- The cases for and against neural organoids (00:11:30)
- Artificial sentience arising from whole brain emulations of roundworms and fruit flies (00:15:45)
- Using citizens' assemblies to do policymaking (00:22:00)
Highlights put together by Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong